Amiri Baraka
Also Known As: Everett Leroy Jones, LeRoi Jones, Imamu Amear Baraka, LeRoy Jones-Baraka, Ameer Baraka
Biography: Amiri Baraka (born Everett LeRoi Jones October 7, 1934), formerly known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, is an African-American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism. He is the author of numerous books of poetry and has taught at a number of universities, including the State University of New York at Buffalo and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He received the PEN Open Book Award, formerly known as the Beyond Margins Award, in 2008 for Tales of the Out and the Gone.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Newark, New Jersey, USA
Birthday: October 07, 1934
Deathday: January 09, 2014
Adult: No
Gender: Male
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Known For:
Scenes from Allen's Last Three Days on Earth as a Spirit
Overview: This is a video record of the Buddhist Wake ceremony at Allen Ginsberg's apartment. You see Allen, now asleep forever, in his bed; some of his close friends; and the wrapping up and removal of Allen's body from the apartment. You hear Jonas' description of his last conversation with Allen, three days earlier. You see the final farewell at the Buddhist temple, 118 West 22nd Street, New York City, and some of his close friends: Patti Smith, Gregory Corso, LeRoy Jones-Baraka, Hiro Yamagata, Anne Waldman, and many others.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1997-07-03
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The Pact
Overview: A gritty, provocative true-life story of three friends from the 'hood, Rameck Hunt, Sampson Davis, and George Jenkins, who made a pact in high school to find a way to go to college and then medical school. They not only accomplished this, but they're now spreading the word to inspire other inner-city kids to stay off of drugs, out of gangs and to take the educational route to a better life. THE PACT captures the pathos of the men's individual journeys, the integrity of their voices and the power of their rare friendship. Their stories affirm the values that ultimately sustained and drove them: courage, tenacity, and faith. And they give tribute to the life of the mind and its power to turn dreams into reality.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2006-01-01
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Obscene
Overview: A look at the life and work of American publisher Barney Rosset, who struggled to bring controversial works like "Tropic of Cancer" and "Naked Lunch" to publication.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2008-09-26
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1 P.M.
Overview: Lighter and livelier than the films Jean-Luc Godard had made in France, his U.S. collaboration with Direct Cinema documentarian D. A. Pennebaker was meant to be One A.M., as in “one American movie”; but Godard quit the project and the U.S., where to his dismay he discovered that revolution wasn’t imminent, and Pennebaker edited Godard’s material, to which he and Richard Leacock even added a bit more, releasing the result as One P.M., as in “one parallel movie.” It’s a stunning mixture of cinéma-vérité, political theater, and interviews of key sixties figures.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1971-06-08
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Hubert Selby Jr: It/ll Be Better Tomorrow
Overview: An exploration into the life and art of the renowned author of "Last Exit To Brooklyn" and "Requiem For A Dream." Hubert Selby Jr., a self-described "scream looking for a mouth," against all odds, reached international acclaim with his controversial novels. His is a classic story of the great American novelist, overcoming tuberculosis, drug addiction and financial ruin, Selby eventually triumphed in his life and penned seven of the most remarkable and distinctly American books ever written.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2006-06-22
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Ferlinghetti: A Rebirth of Wonder
Overview: The poet and painter, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, is among the world's living monuments to arts and letters. For well over a half century, Ferlinghetti helped shape the currents of poetry and literature with his forceful engagement with society and an ideological position that often found him at odds with the political currents of his day. Ferlinghetti's quiet, behind the scenes demeanor and disarming mien may have assuaged, or even fooled, certain opponents, while in reality he was a literary mercenary, a rebel at the forefront of our own cultural revolution.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2009-04-01
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Fried Shoes Cooked Diamonds
Overview: After World War II a group of young writers, outsiders and friends who were disillusioned by the pursuit of the American dream met in New York City. Associated through mutual friendships, these cultural dissidents looked for new ways and means to express themselves. Soon their writings found an audience and the American media took notice, dubbing them the Beat Generation. Members of this group included writers Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg. a trinity that would ultimately influence the works of others during that era, including the "hippie" movement of the '60s. In this 55-minute video narrated by Allen Ginsberg, members of the Beat Generation (including the aforementioned Burroughs, Anne Waldman, Peter Orlovsky, Amiri Baraka, Diane Di Prima, and Timothy Leary) are reunited at Naropa University in Boulder, CO during the late 1970's to share their works and influence a new generation of young American bohemians.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1979-10-01
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I Heard It Through the Grapevine
Overview: Renowned Black writer James Baldwin retraces his time in the South during the Civil Rights Movement, reflecting with his trademark brilliance and insight on the passage of more than two decades. From Selma and Birmingham and Atlanta; to the battleground beaches of St. Augustine, Florida, with Chinua Achebe; and back north for a visit to Newark with Amiri Baraka, Baldwin lays bare the fiction of progress in post–Civil Rights America, wondering “what happened to the children” and those 'who did not die, but whose lives were smashed on Freedom Road'.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1982-03-03
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Sing! Fight! Sing! Fight! From LeRoi to Amiri
Overview: The story of how Everett Leroy Jones became Amiri Baraka, from his childhood to the mid '60s, is told through interviews recorded in the late '90s.
Genres: Documentary History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2024-02-16
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Cecil Taylor: All The Notes
Overview: Cecil Taylor was the grand master of free jazz piano. "All the Notes" captures in breezy fashion the unconventional stance of this media-shy modern musical genius, regarded as one of the true giants of post-war music. Seated at his beloved and battered piano in his Brooklyn brownstone the maestro holds court with frequent stentorian pronouncements on life, art and music.
Genres: Documentary Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2005-01-01
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Polis Is This: Charles Olson and the Persistence of Place
Overview: Documentary about Charles Olson, exploring his life and the significance of Gloucester, Massachusetts.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2007-04-01
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Return to Gorée
Overview: Because jazz is the miraculous product of the horror of slavery, Youssou N'Dour returned to the slave route and the music they created, in search of new inspiration. Accompanied by the blind Swiss pianist Moncef Genoud and the Director of the Gorée House of Slaves Museum, Joseph N'Diaye, the Senegalese singer wrote new songs during this initiatory voyage which took him to the USA then to Europe. At Gorée, an island just off the Senegalese coast and symbol of the slave trade, his memorable concert marked the end of this quest and the start of a new challenge: making today's generation aware of the tragedy of slavery, the importance of not forgetting and the need for reconciliation.
Genres: Music Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2007-10-27
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Bulworth
Overview: A suicidally disillusioned liberal politician puts a contract out on himself and takes the opportunity to be bluntly honest with his voters by affecting the rhythms and speech of hip-hop music and culture.
Genres: Comedy Drama Crime Thriller Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1998-05-15
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In Motion: Amiri Baraka
Overview: This video portrait, filmed in the days leading up to Amiri Baraka’s appeal of his 90-day sentence for resisting arrest following an argument in his car outside the 8th Street Playhouse movie theater, documents Baraka at his radio show, at home with his wife and children, and performing at readings. It is a delicate vision of a revolutionary who has grown quieter—though never at rest, and as sage as ever.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1983-01-02
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Poetry in Motion
Overview: More than 20 contemporary North American poets recite, sing, and perform their work. Early in the film, Charles Bukowski talks about the energy of poets and of a poem. These poets are the children of Walt Whitman and of Charles Olson, incantatory and oratorical, radical, sometimes incorporating contemporary political imagery. Black Mountain poets, the Beats, minimalists like John Cage, the wordless Four Horsemen, Tom Waits, and others capture aspects of poets as troubadours.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1982-09-17
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Sun Ra: Brother From Another Planet
Overview: Sun Ra was born on the planet Saturn some time ago. The best accounts agree that he emerged on Earth as Herman Blount, born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1914, although Sun Ra himself always denied that Blount was his surname. He returned to Saturn in 1993 after creating a stunningly variegated and beautiful assemblage of earthly and interplanetary music, most notably with his fervently loyal Arkestra. Sun Ra and his Arkestra were the subject of a few documentary films, notably Robert Mugge’s ‘A Joyful Noise’ (1980), which interspersed performances and rehearsals with Sun Ra’s commentary on various subjects ranging from today’s youth to his own place in the cosmos. This documentary reuses some of Mugge’s material and includes some additional interviews.
Genres: Documentary Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2005-01-01
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The New-Ark
Overview: Beginning as a city-symphony of Newark streets, buildings, and people set to wordless chanting, The New-Ark quickly arrives at its political imperatives: Black Power must be accomplished through nationalism, and "a nation is organization." The film focuses on black education, urban public theater, and political consciousness-raising inside and outside of Spirit House - director Amiri Baraka's Black nationalist community center.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1969-02-01
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Langston Hughes: The Dream Keeper
Overview: One in a series of 13 documentaries on renowned American poets produced by the New York Center for Visual History. Described by director St. Clair Bourne as “a narrative performance documentary,” this category-defiant film on the life of poet and writer Hughes and the times in which he lived and worked moves from America to Senegal to Paris, from the 1920s Harlem Renaissance to the Black Pride awakening of the 1960s.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1987-02-23
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Death of a Prophet
Overview: After breaking ties with the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X became a man marked for death...and it was just a matter of time before his enemies closed in. Despite death threats and intimidation, Malcolm marched on - continuing to spread the word of equality and brotherhood right up until the moment of his brutal and untimely assassination. Highlighted by newsreel footage and interviews, this is the story of the last twenty-four hours of Malcolm X. Featuring the music of jazz percussionist Max Roach.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1981-01-01
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James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket
Overview: James Baldwin was at once a major 20th century American author, a Civil Rights activist and, for two crucial decades, a prophetic voice calling Americans, black and white, to confront their shared racial tragedy.
Genres: Documentary TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1989-08-14
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New York Agora: The Legacy of the 60s Counterculture
Overview: The film explores the memory and the legacy of the 60s counterculture through interviews with NY political activists, artists and people on the street. The mosaic of voices heard in the documentary creates a public site for memories, reflections and hopes for the future to be shared beyond the confines of one's community. An inter-generational exploration on what is left of the 60s in people's memory and consciousness.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2008-01-01
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Turn Me On
Overview: Out of the underground archives and the emblematic figures of these avant-garde movements, featuring Steve Ben Israel of the Living Theater, the puppet creator Peter Schumann, the photographer Alain Dister, the American black dramatist Amiri Baraka and a hypnotic ride, punctuated by the electrified performances of Jimi Hendrix.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2007-07-31
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Nationtime
Overview: A report on the National Black Political Convention held in Gary, Indiana, in 1972, a historic event that gathered Black voices from across the political spectrum, among them Jesse Jackson, Dick Gregory, Coretta Scott King, Richard Hatcher, Amiri Baraka, Charles Diggs, and H. Carl McCall.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1972-11-01
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Black Journal: 23; New-Ark
Overview: A short documentary subject made for National Educational Television's Black Journal television program documenting a political rally in Newark, the 1970 mayoral campaign of Ken Gibson, and an African-American voter registration drive with special musical performance by Stevie Wonder.
Genres: Documentary TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1970-07-01
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Black Theatre: The Making of a Movement
Overview: This documentary explores the growth and development of black theatre from its earliest roots, also examining its close ties with the civil rights movement. Included are interviews with veterans of the theatrical world such as James Earl Jones and Ed Bullins.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1978-12-31
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Poets at the Living Theater
Overview: With Allen Ginsberg, Frank O'Hara, Ray Bremser, Le Roi Jones, Peter Orlovsky, this film takes place in the Living Theater, 1958.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2006-11-01
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